I disagree with a lot of that. I do think a lot of obese people don't realize why they are fat. I had absolutely no idea how many calories I was eating until I actually became conscious of what I was eating. I also was eating tons of empty calories, 80% of what I ate was highly refined or very sugary (fruit). I mean, I realized I ate a lot but I didn't realize to what extent. I also didn't realize there was a reason I was hungry all the time and it was because I constantly choose foods with low satiety values. I don't think my experience is uncommon for your typical overweight/obese american. Very very few people are conscious and educated about what they eat. Even on this board, a weight loss board, there are some overweight men and women who don't realize eating too many calories will stop them from losing weight; they look to their ketosis sticks instead of examining their caloric intake and say "I am in ketosis, but why am I not losing?". A lot of obese people are simply ignorant about nutritional fundementals like calories in must be less than calories used for weight loss to occur.

Myth #3 is accurate when applied to moderate obesity, but I am sorry there is no way you can be 100 pounds overweight without eating too much for your personal metabolic needs. There is no way for your body to slow down its metabolic processes enough to save the 100s of so extra calories it requires to build and sustain that much fat mass.

Myth #4 is not accurate either. While it is true many, if not most obese people eat emotionally and have emotional connections with food, what he neglects to mention is that most people have emotional connections to food, not just the obese. It is customary in western culture to reward behavior with food (a's on report cards call for icecream!), to use food to celebrate (thanksgiving and holiday feasts), to use food when you feel bad (broken hearts are soothed by noshing cookie dough), and to use food when you are just bored (watching a movie you eat popcorn and soda, etc). While I think obese people may be more inclined to use food emotionally more frequently and intensely than the normal weight, I DO think blood sugar disturbances from poor food choices and poor nutritional education are very real and totally unemotional reasons for overeating. I think most obese individuals have poor tollerance for refined carbohydrate. Once I addressed my blood sugar imbalances, about 75% of the urges I had to overeat went away. I did (and do) have to work on emotional and habitual over eating, but for me blood sugar problems caused by choosing foods with low satiety values were the biggest over eating trigger for me. I have no problem saying no after eating only a couple of low and controlled carb treat foods, they actually fill me up and leave me satisfied. If they were the real thing, had I not had anything else to eat, I would be shaking and irritable within a couple half hours.

I also have to disagree with myth #5.... while not all fat people are unhappy with their self image, I think it would be very difficult to find a fat person in our culture who wouldn't prefer to be thin all other things equal.